Friday 8 March 2013

Fixing Missing Cover Art On Nexus 4 & 7

Plagued by missing cover art in Play Music? Rejoice, there is a fix! You will first need to install the following (free) apps:
Now here's what you need to do. All set?
  1. Transfer your music to your device. Open Cover Art Downloader to make sure that you have all the cover art.
  2. Open Play Music. Note which album covers aren't displayed.
  3. Using OI File Manager (or your favourite equivalent) navigate to the folder in which the music with the missing album covers is stored. (If you have several album sub-folders within an artist folder, you can just work with the artist folder that contains them.)
  4. Note the name of the folder you located in step (3) and change it to anything else. I usually just add a period at the end of the folder's name.
  5. Open Rescan SD Card!
  6. Open Play Music and wait while the device rescans your media files. When the albums show up (cover art will still be missing), close Play Music and then REMOVE IT FROM THE RECENT APPS LIST.
  7. Using OI File manager, rename the directory from step (4) back TO THE ORIGINAL NAME it had before you changed it.
  8. Open Rescan SD Card!
  9. Open Play Music and wait while the device rescans your media files. Then experience bliss.
Very rarely, cover art will still be missing and you'll have to run through the whole process again, but in the vast majority of cases this will solve the problem.

Still happy you switched from an iPhone? ;)

UPDATE 2013-05-23. I've noticed that you really have to wait a long time on the Nexus 7 32 GB model, about 1--2 minutes, for the device to finish rescanning your media files. Best to keep this in mind as you're going through the fixes. Also, in some cases, in step (3) I have had to rename individual sub-folders rather than just the parent folder. Not sure why.

UPDATE 2013-12-02. If you have Android 4.4 Kitkat installed on your device, you can't use Rescan SD Card! You should use SD Scanner instead.
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11 comments:

  1. Unknown17 May 2013 at 13:38

    Thanks for the fix Richard! I am glad I switched from my iPhone, my Nexus 4 really is a joy.

    As an aside, I tried using some other music players from Google Play, but inevitably with the ones I tried there was an annoying pause between tracks, breaking an otherwise seamless transition between songs. Kanye did not approve! "I ain't saying she's a linebacker, but she ain't messing with no pausetracker"

    I went back to the Play Music app...no annoying pause.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Richard18 May 2013 at 11:50

      My pleasure Brent, glad to be of assistance! I'm sure there must be other music players that do gapless playback, but I'd rather use the stock player too. Will post more fixes as I come across them!

      Delete
  2. Unknown20 August 2013 at 12:32

    Hey Richard,
    I am able to get all my music onto my Nexus 4 but the problem is all the album arts are the same. Suppose I put an album which has different album arts, when i play those songs on my device, all the album arts are the same.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Richard21 August 2013 at 05:23

      Hey Amritveer,

      I've never had that problem myself, so I'm not 100% sure how to fix it. All I can suggest is that you try installing Cover Art Downloader, then click the "Options" button followed by "More" and then "Clear All Album Art." Then open Rescan SD Card, open Cover Art Downloader again, and click "Options" followed by "Fetch Missing Covers." If that doesn't do it the problem might be with your encoding software ... hope that helps!

      Delete
  3. Unknown20 August 2013 at 16:35

    Thanks Richard. Just did this on 32GB Nexus 7. No problems with sub folders or long scan, although I have only got one album on it at the moment.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unknown24 September 2013 at 10:59

    In my nexus for some albums which doesn't have album art is taking some random
    pic from my gallery .... can u please let me know how to remove that pic as album art

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Richard25 September 2013 at 06:43

      Just install Cover Art Downloader, open the app, find your album in the list and long press. You'll get three options: search online for cover art, pick something from your gallery, or clear the cover art altogether. Hope that helps!

      Delete
    2. Unknown25 September 2013 at 08:11

      thanks a lot Mr.Richard

      Delete
  5. Unknown4 February 2014 at 07:34

    This worked as peach. Thanks Richard for taking time to put this somewhere on the web. :)

    ReplyDelete

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